Saturday, March 13, 2010

Since Alice in Wonderland is in the news right now, I'm putting up 2 history posts in one day.

The Mad Hatter is well known in English literature. He was created by Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) for the story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. An interesting side note is that the character was most likely based on a furniture dealer, and not a hatter.

The phrase "mad as a hatter" actually predated the story, and has an interesting neurological history.

Mercury is a metal with multiple human toxicities. It can affect many organ systems, and in sufficient amounts can cause brain damage. When this occurs common symptoms are memory loss, confusion, and behavioral changes.

Mercury poisoning is uncommon in modern medicine, but before it had been identified as a toxin it was commonly used in the cloth industry, in the manufacture of felt.

A hatter, obviously, is someone who makes hats. And in 18th & 19th century England, felt was commonly used in hats. So hatters had a fairly high level of exposure to mercury, and after several years of plying their trade they sometimes developed brain damage, and went "mad". And that's where the phrase came from.

Alice in Wonderland has other neurological trivia. As many of my migraine patients will tell you, their headaches can be preceded by all kinds of visual changes. Typically these are flashing or sparking lights, dark spots, colors, or squiggly or zigzag lines. But some patients will see visual distortions, where things suddenly seem to grow or shrink in front of them. This perception change is now called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

It's known from his personal diaries that Lewis Carroll suffered from migraines with visual changes. It's unknown if he had the perception changes of things growing and shrinking, but who knows? Maybe one of the most famous books ever written was partially inspired by a migraine.

Awesome post! I've heard about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome before...and the mad hatter thing I remember from high school physiology. I've actually never seen the cartoon (or the new movie), but I have read the book...a good story.

As a side note, I have also never seen The Wizard of Oz (just random parts of it).

Too cool! I've had migraines since I was really young (like 3) and I have had that weird sensation of growing/shrinking. I thought that it happened to everyone. I've never associated it with the headache though. Interesting, I'll have to pay more attention now!

Your line that mercury poisoning in modern medicine is rare had me chortling, not because you're wrong on that, but because of how I spend much of my blogging time, countering the portion of the autism community who firmly believes that there is indeed a lot of mercury poisoning going on; indeed they believe an entire generation is being poisoned. Sigh.

Before I got smart and became a cop, I was an environmental tox prof, and mercury was my "thing". I did research on a mercury-polluted river in VA. The Hg levels were still so sky-high 30 years after the polluting industry closed, there was absolutely nothing living in the sediment over a mile-long stretch downstream of the original input site. I always wondered about what all that fish the locals caught there, and ate, was doing to them.

the phrase mad as a hatter is also used in a ryhm to describe toxicity from anticholinergics :) ...I think it is "red as a beet, dry as a bone, blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, and hot as a hare." From a Pharmacy Friend

I've read about the Alice in Wonderland syndrome - I have migraines now and had symptoms like those when I was a kid, before my migraines started. Having read the Alice books, I could completely believe that 'Lewis Carroll' suffered from migraines.

We were discussing this after the Alice in Wonderland movie (which was amazing by the way). So I googled it. Another take on the mad as a hatter phrase is that it was actually originally mad as a adder (angry as a snake).

@anon 11:20pm. Nah, that's just the way Maxalt makes some people feel. The rain cooling sensation is particularly weird in my opinion.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

Singing Foo!

Have Dr. Grumpy delivered automatically to your Kindle for only 99 cents a month! Sign up here!

Dr. Grumpy is for hire! Need an article written (humorous, medical, or otherwise) or want to commission a genuine Grumpy piece for your newspaper/magazine/toilet paper roll? Contact me to discuss subjects. You can reach me at the email address below, or through my Linked-In profile.

Note: I do not answer medical questions. If you are having a medical issue, see your own doctor. For all you know I'm really a Mongolian yak herder and have no medical training at all except in issues regarding the care and feeding of Mongolian yaks.